Summary
Dante is still “bewildered” by his loss of sight when he hears John ask him “what goal [his] soul has set.” Dante gives a short response, but John asks that he expand on it. Dante states that “[b]oth philosophic reasoning/and the authority that descends from” God has propelled him towards desiring the truth. John responds that “the highest of your loves is turned to God” and prods him to verbalize the “other cords” that draw him to God. Dante lists “The world’s existence and my own,/the death He bore that I might live” as other reasons, and when he ceases speaking, the heavens fill with another, sweeter song. Beatrice gives Dante’s vision back as swiftly as one wakes up into a bright light.
Dante sees another light, which Beatrice explains is Adam. He asks Adam to speak with him, and Adam preempts his questions, explaining that it was not tasting the fruit that cast him out of Eden, but trespassing God’s “boundary line.” He also tells Dante that the language he spoke was totally extinct even before the Tower of Babel was built; he even says that “I” was the name of God before “El.” Adam ends the canto on the image of him living “pure, then guilty” on Eden.
Canto twenty-seven begins as “all the souls of Paradise” sing to him. Dante becomes drunk on the joy the singing gives them. Peter’s light changes from white to red, and he begins a diatribe against the failures of the popes that followed him. Beatrice looks ashamed; Peter continues, railing against papal violence, corruption, war, and dissension. He ends by giving a prophecy to Dante, suggesting that Providence will soon right things.
With this said, Beatrice and Dante ascend to the next sphere of heaven. Dante looks to Beatrice, who is more beautiful than any “human flesh” or “paintings done of it.” Beatrice begins to explain that they are nearing the unmoving center of the universe, the mind of God, which gives measure to all time and space. It is enclosed in “light and love.” She ends her speech by discussing the innocence of infants, yet to be able to speak, and the guiltiness of adults who can speak and do harm. She prophecies as well: a day will come when “the fleet [shall] run its true course/and the blossom shall be followed by good fruit.”
Dante begins canto twenty-eight by describing Beatrice as “she who does imparadise my mind”—a strange but significant neologism. He sees in her prophecy a sort of mirror of truth and “Love” and then turns back towards what is within this sphere. A point of light appears, surrounded by a moving ring of fire, encircled by another and another until he sees nine rings. The ring nearest to the point is brightest and most “intruthed,” according to Dante. The point, Beatrice explains, is God. Dante asks Beatrice to explain why the closer rings are more divine, and she explains that it is because the greater bliss there is in something, the “greater body” it will have. When she pauses, sparks shoot from the rings, singing Hosanna. These are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones of God (types of angels), and they “delight//in measure of the depth to which their sight/can penetrate the truth.” From this, she explains, “it may be seen, beatitude itself/is based upon the act of seeing,/not on that of love, which follows after.” She names each ring’s specific set of angels and ends the canto by commenting on which medieval scholars correctly described the hierarchies of angels.
Canto twenty-nine opens with a vernal equinox—the sun and the moon aligned. Beatrice, without needing Dante to ask, responds to his questions. She explains that God, “where every ubi [where] and quando [when] has its center,” created time and space so that “His splendor,/shining back, might say Subsisto,” meaning “I remain” or “I exist.” She further explicates a few particularities about creation: there was no form, matter, or time before God’s creation; the angels were created with the world; the angels assisted in creation after being created; and all angels (except for Satan) have no memory, understanding, or will, as they have never turned away from God. She criticizes philosophers and priests for resorting to rhetoric and false new ideas, straying from scripture, and she concludes her long speech by telling Dante to “See now the height and breadth of the Eternal Worth,/one light, which shines dispersed among/so many mirrors yet remains/in Itself one, just as It was before.”
Analysis
Canto twenty-six plays with two significant Christian notions, both of which are important to Dante’s own journey. First, Dante’s interaction with the saved Adam gestures to God's ultimate forgiveness, as even the person who committed “original sin” is able to live in paradise. We should note, too, that Adam points to God’s “boundary line.” When we consider how often boundaries and limitations play into Dante’s poem, this gesture further confirms the importance of human limitation in Dante’s work and his belief in the need to rely on God.
We should also note that Dante’s blinding seems to allude to the Apostle Paul’s blinding. Originally named Saul, Paul is blinded in Acts 9:3-9; in Acts 9:13-19, he regains his sight, is renamed, and becomes a committed Christian. That Dante loses his sight and then regains it subtly aligns him with Paul, known both for his theological letters and his immense faith. Dante thus becomes a sort of poetic Paul, performing holy writing with “healed” eyes.
In analyzing canto twenty-seven, we should first call our attention towards Peter’s long speech, which Dante sculpts to have an impassioned tone. Peter’s repetition of “my place,/my place, my place” evokes his increasing anger, and it does this, significantly, by pointing to his “place” as the first pope.
Another very significant moment in this canto is Beatrice’s attention to “babbling” babies. Following on Adam’s attention to language, Beatrice praises babies, who don't have language, and seems to suggest that language is, in part, the source of moral failings. In the context of Dante’s persistent attention to the limitations of language, we might begin to see why Dante praises the faculty of vision more often than the faculty of speech and the visual more often than the spoken.
In canto twenty-eight, we see Dante’s most concise statement, through Beatrice, of the central role that “seeing” plays in his theological thinking. Rather than focus on being in love, Dante focuses on the sight of love as the site of blessing. This is especially significant when we consider how often Dante looks at Beatrice (without physically touching her). Thus, that Dante describes her as the one who “imparadises” him suggests that the sight of her seems to wrap him “in paradise.”
Let's now move to canto twenty-nine. When they are near God, as the center of the universe, Dante uses Beatrice’s speech to tackle a number of significant theological questions about creation. But perhaps most significant is that Dante uses the repeated motif of light and mirrored light to address these theological questions; the whole of creation (time and space) becomes a reflection of Divine Light. This use of the motif allows God to remain “Itself one,” keeping Dante’s God as all things, while also allowing him to evoke a sense of multiplicity and change.
